Energy/Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (EAMR/HAMR) systems can potentially increase the areal density of information recorded magnetically on various media. For example, to achieve magnetic information storage levels beyond 1 terabit per inch squared, smaller grain size (e.g., less than 6 nm) media may be required. Such designs can demand higher Ku materials for a recording layer to sustain thermal stability, such as L10 ordered FePt alloys. Due to high anisotropy, FePt media is not writable with conventional recording heads. Therefore, either exchange coupled composite media structure or heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) are generally needed. HAMR media generally includes a magnetic recording layer and a heat sink positioned beneath the magnetic recording layer. To facilitate efficient HAMR, including the use of minimal laser power to achieve heat assisted writing and reading of information on the media, it is necessary to dissipate heat and/or light energy from the magnetic recording layer. Typically, this is achieved to a certain degree by the heat sink layer. However, conventional heat sink layers may not adequately dissipate heat and/or light energy from the magnetic recording layer.
To address this problem and a more specific problem of lateral heat spreading from the heat sink, U.S. Pat. No. 7,869,162 describes HAMR media including a thermal resistor layer added between the heat sink and recording layer. However, the HAMR media with this thermal resistor layer has limited efficiency and may not adequately dissipate heat and/or light energy from the magnetic recording layer in many applications. Accordingly, an improved HAMR media structure that addresses these shortcomings is needed.